Fed up with your current relationship? Here’s the cure. Get thee to a Class Reunion. There is nothing like seeing old familiar faces to remember why you either married your HS sweetheart and settled into your home town or why you ran away so fast from your Alma Mater that the school track still has the spot where your US Keds laid rubber. And here’s a hot tip: forget all that fantasy about finding your true soulmate at your class reunion. If they didn’t look good to you back in High School, age does not improve things (appearances, health, finances–that stuff plummets faster after 40 years than the Dow Jones). I’m just saying don’t go to a Class Reunion to cruise. For one thing these people remember you when you had braces and zits for another they are never going to be able to retire either! So what’s to gain?

And for the record, most people don’t bring their spouses to a Reunion for a good reason. It’s not so they can fool around, or even because their spouses may get bored while attending. You don’t bring your spouse to a reunion because when you’re about to jump up onto the bar and boog-a-loo in your support hose you don’t want to hear your spouse’s voice over the din saying, “should I speed dial your orthopedic surgeon or go right for the paramedics, Nana?”

So if romance is not a good reason to attend a Reunion, what is?

Laughter and finally a sense of belonging.  I was never “in crowd” material, but when you start outliving people, the epicenter changes in a hurry. With the playing field leveled out a bit we all gussied up and swapped memories of first loves, first jobs, and cutting class. It was so American. Bring me your tired, your weak, your huddled masses…of cellulite. We were rekindling our youth; in fact, there was enough Retin A and Rogaine in the place you could have lit a match on that kindling and had S’mores for a week. We let it all hang out (as if we could stop it).                         

But something magical does happen when people reunite. I for one was energized by the fun of talking with people who all shared a common past. I felt like Eliza Doolittle on RedBull, “I could have danced all night. I could have danced all night and still have begged for more.” Granted the begging I was doing at 1am was for BenGay. Yes, okay, I wanted to be young and vivacious again, and I did it. I just couldn’t sustain it for very long. But, byjingo, like fine wine and good cheese I felt I was a better person for all the years that had passed. Albeit this good cheese is less like a snappy Vermont cheddar and more like something you’d find in the back of the refrigerator looking like a science project. The trick was to scrape off the gray-green mold for a night and pass for the Sell-By-Date. Thanks to L’oreal and low wattage bulbs I was off and teetering.

I don’t Iike the fact that I am over a half century old. And yes, I will own that I had a part in my aging process. But who knew cherry cokes and burgers were rotting my innards? And my outters? Oy vey! As teenagers we put bottles of baby oil “all over our bodies” and went out unprotected in the sun for days on end (pun intended). It’s amazing we have any skin left. (Talk about Cracklin’ Rosey!) If I’d known what George Hamilton was going to look like back then I’d thought twice about the advice to “sing in the sunshine and laugh everyday” (thank you Ms. Dusty Springfield, easy for you to say, you could afford the collagen!)

This is not to say folks from my school are unattractive now. The opposite is true. There was always an inordinate contingency of the Barbie and Ken look-a-likes in my class. In my school you’d call in sick if you had a blemish that didn’t airbrush out by the time the bus came. More girls stayed home for a month with nose jobs than with mono. Even now, four decades later this was a handsome and still preppy crowd.

But being older means we’re just a tad savvy enough not to be too impressed with bragging. Gone was the earlier Class Reunion conversation of one-upmanship. No one cared how many houses you owned now, because we all knew you couldn’t sell them in this market if they came with hookers and free cable.

This time around people were generous and kind. “You look great!” “You look like your yearbook picture.” “I’d know you anywhere.” This was all sincere. But it was also coming from a group that put together couldn’t read an eye chart. Even with contacts, heck, even new corneas recognition was more a game of conjecture and 48 point type on the name badges.

FYI: My lasik surgery was 15 years ago. I can see street signs in the distance. So, I just have to memorize them for when I get up there.  Stop and go traffic can really wreak havoc with this system. (being partially deaf, adds a level of competition. Ha! Try that on your video games!) Thus, for me, meeting my classmates at an elbow room only cocktail party was “a close encounter of the absurd kind”, I saw shapes…many shapes most thicker, creased and shorter. I could have taken a wrong turn, ended up at the local zoo, landed in the elephant habitat and been talking to elephant knees for the evening and been none the wiser. Okay, that’s not completely true. The pachyderm parts I saw at the Reunion had on Hawaiian shirts and the afore mentioned large print name tags.

Adding insult to injury, I was unable to find my glasses or locate my eyeballs long enough to put in  contact lenses, so I wandered through the Reunion squinting. It’s a nice effect on the face. Think multiple layers of pleats from my eyebrows to my chin(s). When my pictures came back I looked like I had been wearing 24 sheer curtain panels on both sides of my eyes and all of them had been shoved onto 2 inch curtain rods. Not exactly the “look” I was going for!

In retrospect, I’m going to suggest that our 50th Reunion should have a theme, Masquerade. And as far as those photos that are circulating the internet, I am downloading them and adjusting them, cause that’s why God made Photoshop, especially the Blur Tool!

There was another GREAT part of the reunion, besides finding out folks have aged at the same rate as I did. I found out that the great tidal wave of misery that hits me about every 7-10 years since I left the protection of my parent’s home was not my fault (at worst) and (at best) is not just my bad luck.  It turns out other folks have had their share of hard knocks as well and always had so, but now were willing to spill the beans.

I swear, some days over the last 40 years it felt as if a wall of death, destruction, depression, debt, divorce, and disease (dang there are a lots of unpleasant “D” words)…that wall was falling on my head alone. I was exhausted. I felt as if I was always playing catch up to be equal with my classmates, but just like “Shoots and Ladders”… winning eluded me. I’d seem close and BANG! the dreaded wall of diphtheria-doused- dung was knocking on my door.

But it wasn’t true! I don’t mean to relish in anyone’s misfortune…but thanks to the Reunion and a few “umbrella drinks” at the bar I have now divined that other people have had to deal with same damnable life distractions as have I. So it’s true! Misery does love company, especially when it comes in demitasse diets of dramatically diabolical dismal diatribes of doom. (Somebody rip the “D” section of the dictionary outta my hands, will ya?) Good thing I haven’t developed any Compulsive Disorders as I’ve aged!

So there you have it.

Class Reunions are good to get perspective. You’re old but you’re not dead yet, so go out and make a difference somewhere. You’ve had it bad, but the only people who have no problems are in the cemetery. You ache, you’re partly deaf, you’re wrinkled, but you won’t notice it unless you start dating a 30 year old (besides, those critters are disease ridden). So Boomers, remember, REunited we stand, ur because well, without our walkers, canes and new knees we can’t stand alone.

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